[A-List] US corporate state: democracy at work

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Adopting Union Tactics, Firms Dive More Deeply Into Politics
Employees Targeted With Voter Guides, Turnout Efforts

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 24, 2002; Page A08

Seeking to fill a void in the low-interest congressional campaigns,
pro-Republican businesses are muscling into the Nov. 5 elections in novel
ways, stuffing voter guides into pay envelopes, e-mailing workers with
candidate report cards, and mounting get-out-the-vote drives that take a
page from organized labor.

To be sure, corporations are also seeking to influence the elections the
old-fashioned way, with cold cash. With the traditional, last-minute surge
in giving still to come, corporate political action committees already have
raised more money than they did in 2000, a presidential election year.
Unregulated "soft money" donations are on track to break the record set in
the last election cycle. And GOP-leaning, business-financed advocacy groups
are reporting steady increases in donations fueling their TV ads supporting
or attacking chosen nominees.

But those traditional measures of financial involvement tell only part of
the story.

"We're more energized than ever been before," said David Rehr, president of
the National Beer Wholesalers Association, whose political action committee
had raised nearly $2.2 million by the end of September, surpassing its 2000
election total. "The money is still important, but beyond the money we want
to get to every eligible pro-beer vote and make sure they turn out."

More than in any other election year, companies are testing new ways to get
friendly voters to the polls. They include direct, workplace appeals to
employees and get-out-the-vote drives that until recently would have been
considered taboo.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. is broadcasting its own issue advertisement
on prescription drug affordability in seven congressional battleground
states, breaking with the tradition of advertising through organizations
that hide their financial backers. And companies such as ExxonMobil Corp.
and International Paper Co. have begun making subtle political pitches to
tens of thousands of their workers.

"Is this the watershed election? I'm not sure," said Greg Casey, president
and chief executive of the Business Industry Political Action Committee
(BIPAC), which advises other business PACs on campaign tactics. "But it's
certainly part of the important process of changing our approach to
politics."

Business groups say the stakes are high. Shifting Senate control to the GOP
could secure priorities such as a permanent repeal of the estate tax, bigger
tax deductions for business investments, elimination of the corporate
alternative minimum tax and curbs on legal liability judgments. Conversely,
they say, Democratic control of the House could mean higher corporate tax
rates to finance Social Security and a prescription drug benefit for
Medicare, and could jeopardize the tax cut that business groups helped
secure last year.

That pitch has brought in a lot of money, mainly from executives and
employees. The 15 largest business political action committees had raised
$36.6 million by the end of September, slightly more than they raised
through the presidential campaign cycle of 2000.

Unregulated "soft money" is coming in as well. As of Sept. 9, business
groups had raised $708 million in soft money, dwarfing the $62 million
raised by labor unions, said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center
for Responsive Politics. At this pace, soft money donations should surpass
the $1.23 billion that flowed into the 2000 campaign.

Some watchdog groups worry that businesses and business organizations are
straying over the line of propriety, if not legality.

"There are some new and particularly blatant techniques out there," said
Matt Keller, legislative director for Common Cause.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) took some political heat this month when he appeared
in a Pfizer-financed ad promoting the company's prescription-drug discount
card for seniors. When a local television report questioned whether the ad
violated the legal ban on direct corporate political contributions, Pfizer
decided to drop it, said Nehl Horton, a Pfizer spokesman.

But that did not stop Terry from using the Pfizer ad's gauzy images of
senior citizens in his campaign ad on the prescription drug issue. The
Pfizer ad, intended to insulate the company from charges that it was
undermining efforts to secure low-cost prescription drugs for seniors, is
running in Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, New
Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. It marks the first time Pfizer has
advertised under its own name, rather than going through front groups, such
as the United Seniors Association, Horton said.

Indeed, businesses are becoming more up-front in their appeals.

"If we're secretive, if we're trying to play some game and hide, that
becomes the story: 'What are you hiding?' " said Derrick Max, head of the
Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security,
which is using up to $8 million in business contributions to run issue ads
to defuse Democratic attacks on Social Security privatization.

BIPAC officials have been advising businesses to take advantage of new
interpretations of election law to go straight to their rank-and-file
employees. Traditionally, the workplace has been divided between ordinary
workers and a "solicitable" class of executives, administrators and
shareholders, who are legally open to political appeals. But as more
employees become shareholders through their pension-fund holdings, the wall
between the classes has fallen.

So far, business lobbyists say, companies have been slow to take risks. One
lobbyist said they have dipped more than a toe into the new world of
political advocacy but not much more than an ankle. Casey said companies can
be frank with their "solicitable class," through pointed "issue guides" that
tell where candidates stand on company concerns.

But, he stressed, "we strongly recommend not telling people who to vote for.
Big red X's and nice green checks tell the story well."

That is exactly ExxonMobil's approach. Widely available company campaign
fliers encourage employees to vote, update them on legislation of concern
and lay out the company line on issues. But an ExxonMobil "Citizen Action
Team" Web site, available through the company's Web site, includes more
pointed candidate scorecards, featuring voting records on issues pertinent
to the company, such as oil and gas exploration, and other issues not so
pertinent, including the patients' bill of rights and last year's tax cut.

Sure enough, a politician's vote for the company's position gets a green
check; a vote against gets a bold red X.